Authors here investigate specific emotions, such as sadness, courage, and fear. Others turn to emotions spread throughout society by contemporary events, such as a ruler's death, the outbreak of war, or religious schism, and discuss how such emotions have widespread consequences in both social practice and theory.

Reading the Early Modern PassionsEssays in the Cultural History of Emotion

Edited by Gail Kern Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson

PART I. EARLY MODERN EMOTION SCRIPTS1. Against the Rule of Reason: Praise of Passion from Petrarch to Luther to Shakespeare to Herbert — Richard Strier2. "Commotion Strange": Passion in Paradise Lost — Michael Schoenfeldt3. Poses and Passions: Mona Lisa's "Closely Folded" Hands — Zirka Z. Filipczak4. Compassion in the Public Sphere of Milton and King Charles — John Staines

PART III. DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES10. The Passions and the Interests in Early Modern Europe: The Case of Guarini's Il Pastor fido — Victoria Kahn11. Sadness in The Faerie Queene — Douglas Trevor12. "Par Accident": The Public Work of Early Modern Theater — Jane Tylus13. Strange Alteration: Physiology and Psychology from Galen to Rabelais — Timothy Hampton